Monday, March 19, 2012

Coming Soon!

Imagine renovating your Victorian home and discovering a hidden room, complete with furniture, a trunk full of of treasures and shadows hovering over it. That's exactly what happened to Anna Hughes.

Excerpt:

I hurried to my
room, freshened my lipstick and ran a comb through my hair. I loved my new
short hairstyle, even if Ben didn’t like it. It didn’t take hours blow drying
and styling even after a shower. Chad Andrews, the contractor Connie
recommended, would be here any minute. I liked the sound of his voice over the
phone, all deep and masculine. Besides, he sounded as excited about the
restoration as I was.

I hurried downstairs
when the doorbell rang, opened the door, and my mouth darn near dropped open.
The sexiest, hunk of a man I ever saw stood in front of me. His dark hair,
mussed from the wind, fell over his forehead. Bushy eyebrows topped the bluest
eyes I’d ever seen. He towered over my five foot six height. A complete
contrast to Ben’s dark brooding looks.

Something
jolted inside me, and I swear electricity seared the air between us. Even my
arms tingled. Never had a man affected me this way. What was wrong with me? I’m engaged for
heavens sake. But I couldn’t help it. Chad Andrews stirred something inside of
me. Something Ben never stirred.

“Chad, please.
Nice to meet you too, Anna. You don’t mind if I call you Anna do you?”

He took my
hand, and my heart did a strange flip. A trembling all the way down to my toes scared
me. I liked the feel of his rough hand, calloused from hard work, and was
disappointed when he let mine go.

“Hi, Chad. No I
don’t mind.” His name flowed easy from my lips, like I’d been saying it
forever. And I especially liked the way he said my name, placing the emphasis
on the first syllable – Ann-a, unlike the quick way Ben said it, more like
On-na, with the emphasis on the last syllable. Kind of hoity-toity.

Chad’s smile
reached his eyes. Something about it made me think he was fun-loving,
spontaneous and adventurous, unlike serious minded Ben. Not that there was
anything wrong with Ben being serious. I just wished sometimes he’d let go a
little. Darn it, why was I comparing Chad to Ben?

“Please, come
in.” I swung the door to let him in, and closed it behind him. He stood in the
foyer and looked around, letting out a low whistle as he stared up the curved
staircase. A picture of him, standing there years ago, waiting for the daughter
of the house to join him, flitted through my mind. He seemed to fit.

I smiled at the
image. “I’ve heard good things about you, Chad. I’m glad you agreed to look at
this job.”

“I couldn’t
resist. When I heard it was a Queen Anne style Vicky, well let’s just say
that’s my weakness.”

“Mine too. When
this house came on the market I had to see it. Once I saw it, I was sold.” I
led the way to the attic. “Come on, I can’t wait to get your opinion.”

I turned the
corner to the landing and looked back at him. Darn, he was good looking. “This
is the first room I want done. We’ll look at the rest of the house later.”

As we rounded
the corner of the attic, Ben joined us. “We want this wall knocked down for
starters. Anna thinks there’s a room behind it. At least there’s a leaded glass
window that shows from the outside of the house,” he said.

Ben’s tone
irritated me. Okay, so he didn’t agree with me about the renovations, that
didn’t give him the right to intrude on my conversation.

Chad knocked on
the wall in several different places and looked at the space between the walls
and took some measurements. “She could well be right,” he said. “This room
should be much larger.” He turned his attention to me. “What exactly do you
want?”

“I want to make
a home office up here for my writing.”

“You’re a
writer?”

Ben didn’t give
me a chance to answer. He came and stood next to me and put his arm around me
possessively. I tried to shrug him off. This wasn’t like Ben. He never touched
me in public. Never even held my hand.

“So what will
you charge to knock the wall down and finish this space? I mean is it even
worth it?” Ben pulled me tighter against him and almost knocked me over.

“Just to knock
the wall down and haul the material away, fifteen hundred dollars. It depends
what else Ms Hughes wants as to the rest of it.” Chad turned his attention back
to me again.

“I can’t give
you a price on that until the wall is gone, and we see what’s behind it. I’ll
need to know exactly what you want, wiring, lights, that kind of thing. You can
knock the wall down yourself and save the money. There’s no wiring or heating
ducts to worry about.”

“Okay, we’ll be
in touch,” Ben said. “Thank you for coming. He guided me to the top of the
stairway and waited for Chad to go ahead of us. I tried to pull away, but Ben
held me tight against him.

“Anything
else?” Chad turned to me again.

“We’ll talk
about it and get back to you,” Ben said, not giving me a chance to answer.

I bit my
tongue. Oh we were going to talk about it. No doubt about that. I’d say
something now, but didn’t want to start anything in front of Chad. What made
Ben think he could take over like that? Like I was a moron who couldn’t think
or talk for myself.

“Okay, then.”
Chad turned and went downstairs ahead of us.

Ben finally dropped
his arm from around me and followed Chad to the door before I made it to the
bottom step. “We’ll be in touch,” he said and almost pushed Chad out the door.

After Chad
left, Ben looked at me. “I think we should knock the wall down ourselves. Then
you can see what’s behind it and not waste the money.”

“You’re willing
to help knock down the wall?” Would wonders never cease? I couldn’t believe my
ears. I let the matter of Ben’s rudeness drop. If Ben was willing to work on
the attic, I wasn’t about to start an argument. Not yet anyway. But you can bet
I wouldn’t forget it, either. He’d hear about it eventually. I’d have my say.
Oh no, he wasn’t getting off that easy.

“Sure, we can
start tomorrow. Once you see there’s no room up there, you can forget this
nonsense of renovation.”

I opened my
mouth to argue, but thought better of it. Ben was willing to help, and I was
taking advantage of that. Fifteen hundred dollars was a lot of money. “Okay,
we’ll start tomorrow.”

***

Whack! I swung
the hammer, and the hole in the attic wall widened. Even through the plaster
dust, I swore I smelled flowers. Roses and something else, Lily of the Valley -
that was it. One more whack and a section of the wall collapsed.

“Ben,
look!” I stepped through the opening and
stared into the room. A dusty, women’s antique French desk stood in the center
of the large room. The wall behind it held book shelves still lined with
books. Two chairs grouped around a table
that held a tarnished silver tea set in front of the window.

I spun around
the room. “My God, what is this?” Pictures hung on faded rose wallpaper. Dim
light, from the dirty stain-glass window in the alcove, cast eerie shadows.
“This is unbelievable.”

Shadowy figures
in the corner of the room beckoned to me. At first I thought my eyes were
playing tricks. Between the dust and the dim light, but no, the shadows were
there, plain as day. They hovered over a carved trunk.

“Ben, do you
see that?”

“See what?” Ben
brushed the dust off his hands.

I held back a
giggle. I couldn’t help it, he looked so uncomfortable. This wasn’t Ben’s cup
of tea. Why he offered to help was beyond me. He stepped through the opening
and looked at me.

“Shadows over
that trunk.” I held back, dying to know what was in it, but half afraid to go
near it.

“Probably
cobwebs.”

I sighed. The look
on Ben’s face said it all. “Cobwebs, right.”

“There you go
again. You and that overactive imagination. I suppose now you’re going to go
ahead with the renovation.” He took a couple steps into the room, stopped next
to the desk and opened a drawer. “Hm, Look at this.” He pulled a sheet of
stationary out of the drawer. “Mary Elizabeth Gilbert, wonder who she was.”

I took the
stationary from him. A bouquet of lily of the valley embossed the top of the
page. Again the shadows appeared and beckoned to me. “Those aren’t cobwebs, Ben. Look.”

I shook my head. Like I didn’t know the
difference between shadows and cobwebs. Definitely shadows. Willowy figures
hovered over the trunk. Come open it, they seemed to say. There was a sense of
urgency about them, yet I didn’t feel threatened.

Giving in to
the urge, I hurried to the trunk and lifted the decorative lid. “Oh, look at this!” I lifted a pearl handled
hairbrush out of the trunk. “It’s beautiful.” A shadowy figure floated above
it. Then I lifted out a corset and held the tiny form in front of me. One of
the shadowy figures moved closer, almost on top of me.

“Ugh, I can’t
imagine having to wear one of these.” Suddenly, my stomach and chest tightened.
I lost my breath, gasped and sunk to my knees. The corset fell from my hand.
The shadows backed off. I was finally able to take a deep breath, and let it
out slowly.

When I opened my
eyes, Ben stood over me. “Are you okay? What happened? You looked like you were
going to pass out.”

“I...I don’t
know. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like someone was squeezing the life out of
me.” I looked at the corset lying on the dusty floor. What just happened here?
A shadowy figure lingered nearby. What
was it trying to tell me?

“I think we
better get out of this dust for a while, get some fresh air.” Ben helped me to my
feet. “You can come up later. I know how anxious you are to go through that
trunk. There’s no stopping you now, is there?”

I hated to
leave, but Ben was right. I had inhaled an awful lot of dust. “Ben do you smell
flowers -roses or lily of the valley?”

“All I smell is
plaster and years of dust. Roses, are you sure you’re okay?” He furrowed his
brow and gave me one of those disapproving looks that said I was nuts. I hated
that look.

“I’m fine, just
a little woozy. You’re right, probably from all the dust.” So Ben hadn’t seen
the shadows, and he didn’t smell the flowers, so what. I looked back through
the opening, and they were there, big as life. I sighed and reluctantly
followed Ben downstairs.

After a quick
lunch and something to drink, I stood, anxious to go back up to what I now
called my treasure trove. I love old things. That’s why I bought this old
Victorian house. Sure, it was a fixer-upper, but that was part of the charm and
fun.

I needed a quiet place to write. Someplace I
could retreat while work was being done on the rest of the house, and the attic
fit the bill. Besides, I needed a place of my own, away from Ben.

Ben had noticed
the stained glass window from the outside a couple weeks ago. I hadn’t noticed
it when I bought the house. I’m sure Ben was sorry he mentioned it to me. But I
was still planning on renovating the attic. The window was the only reason I
managed to talk Ben into tearing down the wall. Not that he believed me. He
thought someone just covered over the window from the inside. He only went
along because he thought it would prove me wrong. Ben liked to do that. But I
knew I was right this time, and I took great satisfaction in proving him wrong
for a change.

I had been
drawn to the attic ever since I first saw it, even without knowing about the
window. And I wanted to help with the renovation, but it didn’t take a brain
surgeon to know there was a lot I couldn’t do. Electrical work for one and the
whole house needed rewired. Thank goodness, I found Chad. Hopefully, he was still
interested in doing the work, and Ben’s rudeness hadn’t turned him off.

Downstairs, Ben
dusted off his clothes. “I hope you’re going to hire someone to finish this.
You know I’m not cut out for this kind of work.”

I sighed.
Luckily, Ben had helped this much. “You know I’m going to hire Chad, if he’s
still willing to do the work, that is. You were awfully rude to him.”

“I think you
should find someone else. I don’t like that guy.”

“He comes
highly recommended. Connie says he’s tops in his field.” Of course Ben was
going to give me a hard time about Chad. His dislike was evident right from the
beginning, and he didn’t do a thing to hide it. “Besides, I liked him. He
didn’t have to suggest we knock down the wall. He could have charged me for it.
I think he’s honest.”

“I don’t like
this, Anna. This whole renovation thing is crazy.”

“Come on, Ben. Just
help me finish knocking down that wall. There’s not much more to do. I’ll call
the contractor later.”

I didn’t like
the way Ben looked at me. Like he was sorry he offered. He hated dirt. Besides
the fact that he was sweating and the plaster dust mixed with the sweat
probably made him feel gritty. He was going to back out and leave me to finish
the job. I wasn’t sure I could handle it. “Please, I really need your help.”
Begging usually worked with Ben. He loved to hear me beg.

“Oh, what the
heck.” He shrugged. ”You’re right there isn’t much more to knock down. Guess
that’s the least I can do. Besides I’m already dirty. Once we get that wall
knocked down, I can take a shower and call it quits. Okay, I’ll help with the rest of the wall,
but that’s it.”

I smiled and
kissed him. “Thank you.” How Ben was going to survive coming here with all the
renovation going on, I didn’t know. Even as a kid, he said he hated getting
dirty. While the neighborhood kids played in the dirt, he sat in the air
conditioned house, reading. I could picture him. Serious-minded Ben didn’t like
things other boys enjoyed, like sports. He still didn’t.

But he followed me up the steps. “Let’s get
this done.”

Back upstairs, we
knocked down the rest of the dividing wall. All the while, I watched the
shadows move back and forth between me and the trunk. What was in there? I
couldn’t wait to find out, but I continued to help Ben. He’d have a fit if I
quit.

“Why do you
suppose someone sealed up this room?” I tried to ignore the shadows flitting in
and out of my vision. They definitely wanted me to follow them.

“I have no
idea.” Ben knocked down the last of the dividing wall. “There, we’re done. Now
let your contractors finish the job.” He brushed off his hands. “Why I offered
to help you is beyond me. Can I leave now?”

I laughed. I
couldn’t help it, he looked so pathetic. Pathetic and so dirty. I appreciated
the fact he helped me. Really I did. Ben didn’t particularly like the old
Victorian and couldn’t understand why I insisted on buying it. Oh well he’d get
used to it. He’d have to if we were going to get married. This was my home, and
I was in it for the long haul.

“Maybe someone was hiding a past.” I ignored Ben’s
question. Seldom did he ask permission for anything and staying dirty a few
more minutes wouldn’t hurt him.

“It’s like
someone walked out of this room and built the wall. They left everything just
as it was.” Again the shadows appeared and disappeared. Maybe they held the
key. I was dying to dive into that trunk.

With the last
of the wall down, I began the clean up. Ben stood by while I put chunks of
plaster and pieces of lathe into an old box. I could see all Ben wanted to do
was jump into a shower.

Finally, Ben
apparently couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m heading for the shower.” He turned
and hurried down the steps before I could answer. Not that I cared. Right now I
was better off without him. I barely glanced at him. “Go ahead. I can clean
up.”